Citation

Scherr S, Reinemann C. Comput. Hum. Behav. 2016; 61: 80-88.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2016, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.chb.2016.03.009

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Suicide is a leading cause of death worldwide, especially among the young. This study aims to disentangle the presumed causality between the use of online health forums or support groups and suicidality using a representative telephone survey and a two-wave online panel survey containing the same question wording. Cross-sectional data show positive correlations between suicidality and online health forum use, but not limited to the younger. Using longitudinal panel data and autoregressive models, a positive cross-lagged effect of suicidality on internet-based health forum use one month later was revealed. Despite the wide-spread notion that online health forums can increase suicidality the present study provides evidence for the preventive potential of accessible and helpful information online. © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Language: en

Keywords

Internet; Suicidality; Health; Surveys; Online support; Support groups; Online forums; Auto regressive models; Media use; Online support groups; Positive correlations; Telephone survey